English voice packs starts pronouncing the Chinese text

Map Editors Community Hong Kong
1

I recently discovered that English voice packs starts pronouncing the Chinese text in segment names (it used to skip the Chinese Text automatically and only pronounce the English / Numeric parts), but the way it pronounces the text is super weird. It tries to pronounce the Putonghua (Mandarin) pronunciations in the English way, which annoys me very much :ugeek:

Yet not all road segments got this new way of pronunciation, I suspect only tiles that has been recently updated gets this new pronunciation. The pronunciation can be previewed on WME by clicking the blue button next to segment name (street address)

It started happening this week. Gosh can we disable it for Hong Kong? We don’t need Putonghua pronunciations, worse if it doesn’t even pronounce correctly. :evil:

2

Maybe Waze has already put Cantonese in production and caused this changes. I’ll ask them.

3

Hi Keith,
Which voice you are using to cause the problem? Or all English voices?

4

All of them. I normally use Kate (UK), just switched to Jane (US) one moment ago , still have same issue

5

Thanks Keith. I tested it in the UK and pretended I was in HK :mrgreen: . And they all say the Chinese words in strange Mandarin voice :shock: :o
I’ll let Waze know.

6

Hi Keith,
It should be fixed now. Please clear the TTS-cache in your app and check if it works OK or not.
Cheers,
Leo

7

Just tested all English voices and only English (UK) - Kate has problem on some street names.

8

Can you remind me again how to clear TTS cache? I couldn’t find such button on the app. At the moment I’m trying to use other voice packs (Jane, Thomas) to new places, to make sure their voice are not cached when giving me instructions. Seems the problem with Mandarin pronunciations are gone. Yet if I can clear TTS cache, I can try back on Kate (Kate used to be my primary voice pack, so I am sure my app cached almost all the places along my daily commute)

On the other hand, if Waze can remove Mandarin pronunciations on Chinese text like a super easy task, can they also remove the English pronunciation on 靜宜 (Cantonese voice packs)? :lol: At the moment 靜宜 first pronounces the English segment name (also in the Mandarin way :evil: ), then followed by the Chinese text in Cantonese. It’s redundant.

9

You can find most of the codes here:
https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/Global/Search_codes

For clear TTS cache, type cc@tts in the search bar.

10

Not sure what you mean. Can you explain a little more please?

Once you clear the cache, it wouldn’t happens. 靜宜 will only pronounce Chinese word and number in Cantonese.

11

I mean, if Waze can stop the English voice packs pronouncing Chinese text of segment names, can we ask Waze to stop 靜宜 to pronounce English parts of the segment names too?

By the way thanks for the search code, let me clear TTS cache now and try for a few days

12

I tested and 靜宜 doesn’t say the english words and English voices do not say Chinese words anymore. You just need to clear the cache. But funny that English voices will say the Chinese words and vice versa if I back to UK. So it is location/country dependance.

13

Just tried 靜宜 and they fixed it. Now 靜宜 only pronounce Chinese text and Numbers, which is good (for most cases).

A few issues I found so far with 靜宜:

  • Alphabets in exit numbers are also obmitted: Both Exit 10 and Exit 10B are pronounced as “Exit 10”. This will be super confusing to drivers :!: (High priority)

  • The ampersand sign (&) is pronounced as “及” even if it is in the English part of the segment name, which comes ahead of its Chinese counterpart (Example). If Waze cannot fix this easily, we as editors can adapt to this by avoid using (&) sign in English segment name, such as using literal “and” instead as a workaround.

  • The “[P]” sign was pronounced as “Car Park” in English voice packs. Would be good if we can have 靜宜 to say “停車場” too, but I am not sure if Waze voice pack is aware of the Cantonese grammar. In HK, our convention is the put “[P]” sign at the beginning of segment name. For example, [P] Elements N 圓方 (北) was pronounced as “Car Park Elements North” in English voice pack, but in Cantonese it would be more meaningful to move “停車場” to end of sentence by saying “圓方 (北) 停車場” instead of “停車場圓方 (北)”

14

arh…WME is not working properly. Many ppl are complaining that. I’ll come back to take a look. Hoping I can deal with it before the trip :mrgreen:

15

There’s nothing to do with WME, or you mean you cannot find the corresponding segment by clicking my Permalinks?

I know WME’s TTS preview isn’t working for Chinese. It is working well for me for English (UK) though.

You’ll have to pretend to be in HK in order to see how it speaks in the app in Chinese :lol:

16

oh regarding the car park. I think Car park should be said after the car park name on both English and Cantonese, e.g. Elements N car park and 圓方 (北) 停車場, right? I don’t think Waze can do much about it and we may have to think about something else (workaround).

17

regarding the missing alphabet, it should be fixed now. please test and feedback. I can’t test it atm but will do later.

18

Yes I agree “Car Park” should be pronounced for both English and Chinese. I was biased because I’m already used to English voice pack saying “Car Park” at the beginning, but you are right, it should be at the end.

19

Thanks for the update. I will test the missing alphabet later.

On the other hand, I have tested Route Numbers are working well on Kate (English UK), 如意 (Putonghua) and 靜宜 (Cantonese). Thanks Waze for updating it so quickly this time! :wink:

20

Ture. It’s surprisingly quick. Normally they will take few weeks, months or years :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

I just test 靜宜 (Cantonese) on the missing Alphabet. It doesn’t work. I can hear it tries to say B but I believe there is no B sound in the Cantonese voice pack.